Page One Re-Master

by MattSchofield on 10th Oct 2021, 8:09 AM

  
I was never really happy with how this sequence played out in the original version, but I was making it up as I went along, with no plan at all. In the original 2018 version, I showed what the Gingerbread Golem looked like from the start, and never really gave the reader much indication of how Sugar Daddy created him. In hindsight, I realize I was actually trying to cheat as much of that out as I could - it was the beginning of my story and I just wanted to jump in, without the prep work of designing Sugar Daddy's laboratory. At the time I worried about the logic of it all - "how would someone find an oven big enough to bake a 9-foot-tall gingerbread man?" Three years later, I've learned that logic is often the enemy of creativity, and certainly the enemy of comedy. So, leaning in to the fantastical nature of my story, I created a "Giant Gingerbread Man Oven" (complete with a Batman '66-style sign saying as much). Also, while re-examining the early pages of the story, I felt it might be better to try to delay the reveal of the Golem's final form, so that the first time you see what he really looks like is on this later page. So all you see of the Golem in the new version is his doughy, un-baked form.

My goal with redrawing this page was not only for the drawings themselves to look better, but also to improve the composition and the page layout. I decided to try using the Golden Ratio as a guide to composing this page. You can see in the images below how it informed the placement of not only the drawings but also the word balloons.

                                                                                 

I follow a number of professional comic letterers on Twitter - a great source for lettering tips and tricks! One of them made a post about separating text into word balloons according to the ideas being conveyed - each idea should have its own balloon. So I tried that here, and it actually enabled me to use the newly-created string of balloons as a visual device to lead the reader's eye from the Golem, down to Sugar Daddy along the Golden Ratio spiral.
Finally, I added a balloon with "Tonight, my Gingerbread Golem will live!" because I thought it would make the situation as clear as possible for the reader.

 

Comments:

McGrenivan 10th Oct 2021, 11:54 AM
McGrenivan
It's perfect. Are you're spending more time on the artwork, or have you found ways to do MORE in the time you'd regularly spend on it.
MattSchofield 11th Oct 2021, 7:49 AM
MattSchofield
It's a bit of both, I think. Thanks!
Guest 10th Oct 2021, 6:04 PM
Awesome! Thanks for taking the time not only to share the changes, but to explain them!
MattSchofield 13th Oct 2021, 4:51 PM
MattSchofield
It's my pleasure! Thanks for reading!